


Two Rings

by FahcLove



Category: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - Stoppard
Genre: "Weddings" is a loose term, Fluff, M/M, Weddings, after the show
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 23:48:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20087245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FahcLove/pseuds/FahcLove
Summary: It is the end of the show. It is nothing, an empty black void.  It is a picnic.Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and The Player have a small picnic and discuss nothing and everything, as they usually do.





	Two Rings

**Author's Note:**

> Tom Stoppard grabbed me by the neck and told me to love myself. 
> 
> It's been a full year since I read R&G and I cannot stop thinking about it. I hope I'll write another fic soon.

It is the end of the show. It is nothing, an empty black void. A rope tightens, a neck snaps, a voice calls to empty air. It is an intermission. It is a picnic, with two men sitting way too close to be considered anything but romantic, and a third, sitting on the edge of the blanket staring at everything and at nothing. 

The two men are looking at each other, but also looking at the crowd that just exited the theatre, some crying, some smiling, most looking like they just watched a two-hour comedy that ended in tragedy. The two men are holding hands and one has his legs thrown over the other’s in a manner that is supposed to seem casual, but was preplanned and the man is altogether quite nervous about it. 

The third man is watching the ducks in the pond, just a few meters behind them. He is also watching the crowd and the theatre, and he is also eating blackberries, making sure to bite down very hard so the juice squirts out just enough to stain his lips. He is also watching the two men and grinning like he always does.

“How about that one, yeah?” he says, and although neither man acknowledges his presence, he knows they heard him, “I think that went fairly well.”

“Easy for you to say,” the one who has his legs on top of the other says. He rubs his neck absentmindedly. He is called Rosencrantz, although he’s not exactly sure if that’s his true name. It’s just the one he’s using right now. 

“You don’t have to lose your life every night,” the one with legs on top of his adds. He is called Guildenstern.

“Or your head.” 

The man sitting away, disconnected, is called the Player. Or he is called the King, the Tragedian, an Annoyance, or simply by his real name. But, to his two sort-of-companions, he is called the Player.

The Player smiles, showing a grin of bloody teeth, “Who’s to say I don’t? You don’t know my arc.”

“I know it well enough to know we have it worse than you.”

“I dunno, I rather like the coins.”

“Of course you like the coins. It’s all very frivolous, too capitalist.”

“Demopublican?” 

“Democratic-Republican.”

“Everything capital nowadays,” the Player says, eating another berry, “Even my group cost money to see. It’s how we go on.”

Rosencrantz looks off at the crowd, “They had to pay to be here, to see us. It’s always been like that.” 

Guildenstern frowns, “I have quite a lot of complaints with how you run your business, Player, so I’d rather not take any critique from you.”

“Not enough women, for one. There are a lot of them now, and you don’t have any.”

“But we have Alfred.”

“Yes, but they’re as much a woman as they are a man,” Rosencrantz pauses and thinks, “Which is to say neither.” 

The Player concedes and offers a berry to the two. Guildenstern accepts but does not eat it, instead staring at it intently, as if it held all the meanings in the world. After a few moments of staring, he offers it to Rosencrantz who eats it, his face immediately puckering up.

“Sour,” he says, trying to shake the taste from his mouth. The Player laughs, and Guildenstern shoots him an icy glare. 

“Are they all sour?” Guildenstern asks as he rubs the knuckles of Rosencrantz‘s hand. 

“It depends on the idea of sour.”

“Not ripe, not ready to be picked from the bramble. Having citric, lactic, malic, oxalic, or ascorbic acid, causing faces to pucker and want to spit out the item. That is my idea of sour.”

“Like a ray of sunlight cut short by the cold wind,” Rosencrantz adds helpfully. 

The Player pauses, and after a beat grabs another blackberry, and holds it out to Guildenstern, “I’ll bet you for it.”

Guildenstern groans, “Not this again. The show’s over, old man. Besides, what would we bet anyway? We don’t have anything, we’re just characters floating in a void.”

“Maybe so,” The Player says back, still holding out the berry, “But what do you have to lose?”

Guildenstern thinks, looking around at the nothingness that surrounds him, but also at the theatre in front of him. He feels the picnic blanket beneath him, grass between his fingers, and he feels inky blackness, he feels the void ebb and flow through him. The Player is holding out a berry, but also nothing, with black nothing staining his teeth. He leans forward, his arm stretching farther than what seems possible, and Guildenstern reaches out, when his arm catches something solid. He looks in front of him, and to the side, and behind him, and sees Rosencrantz all around him, looking simple and happy, but also nervous, a crease in his forehead, the corner of his lip red from biting into it. Guildenstern sees himself kissing that lip, sees a nothingness that is just two people who are almost one person. He drops his hand and puts it in Rosencrantz’s and feels the nothing fade away. 

The Player laughs and eats the blackberry, his face twisting and puckering as he swallows it, “You would’ve won,” he says, but neither Guildenstern nor Rosencrantz is listening to him. He smiles a smile only reserved for himself, and digs into his pocket, producing two shiny, circular objects, which he flips at the men, landing in their laps.

“Rings!”

“Rings?”

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern say at the same time, but with an entirely different inflection, and completely different meanings. One is happy, excited and just a tad nervous. The other is confused, curious and very nervous. 

“Yes, rings,” The Player scoffs, “If you don’t want my blackberries, you can have these. It’s not like I have any use for them. 

Guildenstern looks at them suspiciously, but before he could protest, Rosencrantz snatches them up and examines them as if a prestigious jeweler. The rings in question were nothing special, just a gold band, that The Player thinks were used in a particularly tragic play about two lovers who get married in secret, and then kill each other. But he could have stolen them, he wasn’t too sure. 

Rosencrantz, seemingly satisfied, slips one on his ring finger and then puts the other one on his  _ other _ ring finger. Guildenstern sighs.

“And what ring am I supposed to have?”

Rosencrantz pauses, “The other two?” he looks at The Player, who shrugs.

“I only had two,” he says as he leans back, half of his body on the picnic blanket, half on the grass, listening to the two idiots try to figure out what to do.

“But, aren’t there always four rings?”

“Only if four people are getting married. And that’s uncommon enough as it is.”

“But what if just two people are getting married? Just two rings then?”

“Yes, just two rings. Which means you need to give me one,” a pause, then, “No, from your other hand. This finger is the ring finger that a wedding ring goes on. I don’t know why we have another ring finger since it makes the process altogether very confusing, but it could be designed that way. To weed out the people that don’t know how to get married.”

“That doesn’t make sense.”

“So it’s probably true.”

Silence; then, “Wait! We can’t get married without someone marrying us! Player, do you know how to marry people?”

The Player sits up, “Of course. You already have the rings on?” two nods and Rosencrantz holds up his hand, and then Guildenstern’s, both with matching gold bands, “Good, that cuts out half the work. Now all you need to do is say you love each other.”

“I thought it was ‘I do’?” 

“I’m the minister, you have to do what I say.”

Rosencrantz laces his hand in Guildenstern’s, “I love you!” he says, both excited and nervous, as if he hadn't said it a million times before.

Guildenstern flushes red, as if he hadn't heard it a million times before, “I love you too.” 

“Now,” The Player says, and they look at him as if they had forgotten he was there, which was probably true, “This is the final, and most important part. Kiss each other.”

Both seem very happy with that order and Rosencrantz excitedly presses his face into Guildenstern’s, who kisses back just as fiercely. The Player, suddenly embarrassed - even though he’s seen (and participated in) way worse - lays back down and listens as the two newlyweds beside him giggle and kiss each other until the nothingness that surrounds them is replaced by something The Player would consider the feeling of  _ love _ . 

And somewhere, both in the future and in the past, when Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are not in nothingness together, instead saying lines they have repeated a million times, and moving in the same familiar way, despite the stage and the actors being entirely different. And in that somewhere, both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have a shabby gold wedding ring on their finger, even though neither actor can remember putting it on. But, it fits right at home, as if it was always meant to be there; which, in a way, it was. 


End file.
